Topic
Anthropology
562 sermons · All topics
Laws concerning sexual relations
Leviticus 18 regulates sexual morality within the structure of a covenant document, moving from preamble to prohibition to sanction. The chapter forbids incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality — not as arbitrary decrees but as God's just response to the documented wickedness of Egypt and Canaan, with the land itself serving as the instrument of covenantal judgment. Paul's invocations of Leviticus 18:5 in Romans 10 and Galatians 3 reveal that the chapter's 'do this and live' principle exposes the impossibility of law-keeping as a ground of justification, driving the reader to salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. The abominations condemned here are not confined to the Mosaic code but are binding legislation upon all people at all times, as their reappearance in the New Testament epistles confirms.
2LCF Chapter 5 - God's Providence
God's providence, as defined in 2LCF Chapter 5, is not blind fate or impersonal chance but the active upholding, directing, disposing, and governing of all creatures and things by the good Creator, according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will. The chapter roots providence in the eternal decree of Chapter 3 and traces its scope across four domains: the whole system in general, fortuitous events, the free actions of men, and even the sinful actions of men — the last illustrated supremely by the crucifixion of Christ in Acts 2:23, where God's absolute sovereignty and man's full culpability are held together without cancelling either. The session works through paragraph 1 of the chapter in detail, drawing on Psalm 73, Isaiah 46, Daniel 4, Acts 17, Proverbs 16 and 21, Ephesians 1 and 2, Philippians 2, and Genesis 50 to show that Scripture, not merely the confession, grounds these claims. Believers are exhorted to interpret every circumstance — including political wickedness and social evil — through the axiomatic principle that God is good, while continuing to pray, preach the gospel, and live according to God's revealed will rather than retreating into fatalism.
2LCF Chapter 4 - Of Creation
Creation is not a brute fact but a deliberate act of the undivided Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — for the manifestation of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness. This study of 2LCF Chapter 4 traces what creation is (all things not God, made ex nihilo and from previously created matter), who created (the triune God whose immutability and eternality mean creation produced no change in Him), and what man is within creation (a being made male and female, bearing reasonable and immortal souls, the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness). The chapter culminates in the covenant of works: man was not created in covenant but was brought into covenant by God's voluntary condescension, establishing the pre-fall communion whose loss in Adam and recovery in the second Adam frames the entire remainder of the confession.
The Righteousness of David
David's declaration in 2 Samuel 22:21–25 that God rewarded him according to his righteousness stands in apparent tension with his gross sins of adultery, murder, and failure to act in the rape of Tamar. This sermon resolves that tension through the theology of justification by faith alone, demonstrating from Romans 4 that David, like Abraham, was accepted by God not on the basis of personal moral achievement but through the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith — the same way any sinner in any covenant has ever entered the presence of God. David's own writings, particularly Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, confirm that he understood his standing before God to rest on atonement, forgiveness, and the crediting of another's righteousness, not sinless perfection. The sermon closes with a call to treasure public worship as David did, and to bring great sin to the great Savior who justifies the ungodly.
The Exhortation and The Exemplar - Philippians 2:6-11
Philippians 2:5–11 presents Christ not merely as a moral example but as the supreme Exemplar whose condescension from pre-incarnate glory to the death of the cross exposes the pride of the first Adam and calls redeemed sinners to humility. The passage is examined under five headings within the hymn to Christ as to God: his consubstantiality with the Father, his equality with the Father, his condescension in the Incarnation, his active and passive obedience unto death, and the blessed exaltation that follows the perfection of his mediatorial work. Against contemporary subordinationism, the sermon insists that the Son is in no way inferior to the Father in his divine nature. The practical close calls Christians to exercise humility, to deepen their knowledge of the person and work of Christ, and to bend the knee in worship and confession that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
The Triumph of Samson at Jawbone Height
Judges 15 presents Samson not as a man governed by lust but as a Spirit-empowered deliverer who typifies the Lord Jesus Christ. This exposition traces three movements: the betrayal by Samson's father-in-law, the treachery of the men of Judah who preferred Philistine subjection to covenantal freedom, and the triumph at Jawbone Height where the Spirit of the Lord shattered Samson's bonds and enabled him to slay a thousand men. The central application calls God's people away from the assimilation of godless culture toward uncompromising allegiance to the Word of God, grounded in dependence upon the God who furnishes His servants with every means of victory.
The Resurrection and the Life, Part 3
John 11:28–37 confronts the reader with the full weight of Christ's hypostatic union: the same person who will momentarily command a dead man to walk is here groaning in anger and weeping at the graveside. This passage presses the question of the Savior's true humanity — that he assumed human nature with all its essential properties and common infirmities, yet without sin — as the indispensable ground of redemption. The sermon traces Mary's complaint, the Lord's outrage at the ravages of sin and death, and his tears as expressions of genuine human emotion consistent with immutability in the divine nature, drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism's answers on why the Mediator must be both God and man. The hearer is finally confronted with the same question Jesus put to Martha: 'Do you believe this?'
The Transition from Darkness to Light, Part 1
Ephesians 5:3–7 calls believers to a radical break from the sexual sins that characterised their former life in darkness. Working through the three prohibited actions (fornication, uncleanness, and covetousness) and three prohibited forms of speech (filthiness, foolish talking, and coarse jesting), the sermon demonstrates that these sins are not merely behavioural failures but expressions of idolatry—putting creaturely gratification above God. The consequences are grave: those who unrepentantly practice such things have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, a warning grounded in both general revelation and the consistent testimony of the apostolic letters. Believers are called to resist deception through the word of God, to replace vile speech with thanksgiving, and to ground their ethical obedience not in moral effort alone but in the imputed righteousness of Christ.
Live Stream - April 30, 2023
Ecclesiastes 3:1–15 confronts the tyranny and enigma of time with two interlocking truths: there is a divinely ordered time for everything under heaven, and the God who governs time has given mankind both the gift of temporal enjoyment and the call to fear him. The sermon works through the poem of verses 1–8 — with its paired polarities of beginning and ending, emotion, abounding and lacking, and private and public life — before turning in verses 9–15 to the God who makes everything beautiful in its time, places eternity in the human heart, and works all things according to purposes no creature can fully trace. The application is direct: in a fallen world full of injustice, absurdity, and uncertainty, God's people are to enjoy temporal blessings as gifts, fear God, keep his commandments, and trust that the same God who sent his Son at the appointed fullness of time will make everything beautiful — including the return of Christ.
A Time for Everything
Ecclesiastes 3:1–15 confronts the tyranny and perplexity of time by showing that God has ordered every season of life — from birth to death, weeping to laughter, war to peace — according to his sovereign decree. The preacher of Ecclesiastes does not resolve the tension between life's absurdities and God's purposes, but holds them in juxtaposition: God has put eternity in the heart of man, yet man cannot find out the work God does from beginning to end. The sermon draws two obligations from this: enjoy the good gifts God gives in time, and fear the God who governs all of time — including the appointed moment of Christ's incarnation, the moment of each sinner's effectual calling, and the appointed day of final judgment.
2LCF 32 - Of the Last Judgment
The Last Judgment is not a peripheral doctrine but the telos toward which all of Scripture drives — appointed by God, executed by Christ, and comprehensive in scope over angels and all humanity alike. This study of 2 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 32 moves through three divisions: the concept of the Last Judgment (paragraph 1), the goal of the Day of Judgment as the manifestation of God's mercy in the salvation of the elect and His justice in the damnation of the reprobate (paragraph 2), and the practical relevance of that day for deterring sin, consoling the godly in adversity, and maintaining watchful expectation (paragraph 3). Romans 9 anchors the argument that God's sovereign purposes in election and reprobation are the foundation for understanding why the judgment will unfold as it does. The doctrine calls the people of God not to despair but to look forward with expectation to the coming of Christ, the righteous Judge, who rules and reigns at the Father's right hand even now.
The Characteristics of the New Man
Ephesians 4:17–24 sets before believers a stark contrast between the darkened, alienated mind of the spiritual Gentile and the renewed mind of the new man in Christ. The sermon argues that verses 22–24 are not imperatives commanding believers to transform themselves, but indicatives declaring what God has already accomplished in regeneration: the old man has been put off, the mind is being renewed, and the new man has been put on. These realities — rooted in the second Adam reversing what the first Adam forfeited — form the doctrinal foundation upon which the ethical commands of Ephesians 4:25–6:24 rest. Believers are therefore called to walk in a manner consistent with what they already are in Christ, using the ordained means of gospel preaching, Scripture, and prayer to pursue sanctification.
2LCF 31 - Intermediate State
The doctrine of the intermediate state — the condition of the soul between death and the final resurrection — is examined through 2LCF Chapter 31 and the key Scripture passages that ground it. The confession teaches a sharp dichotomy: at death, the body returns to dust while the immortal soul either goes immediately to be with Christ in paradise or is cast into hell, with no third option such as purgatory or soul sleep. The resurrection of both the just and the unjust on the last day is treated in paragraphs 2 and 3, with 1 Corinthians 15 providing the clearest statement that Christ's coming is followed immediately by the end — a structure that complicates dispensational premillennialism. The lesson closes with a call to find comfort and ethical urgency in the simplicity of biblical eschatology rather than in elaborate prophetic systems.
Live Stream - February 05, 2023
John 8:48–53 records the unbelieving Jews charging Jesus with being a Samaritan and having a demon — a double accusation rooted not in evidence but in the murderous rage that Christ himself had already traced to their true father, the devil. Jesus refutes the charge on three grounds: he honors the Father, he does not seek his own glory, and he speaks the words of eternal life — three things a demon-possessed man cannot do. The sermon presses on the identity of Christ as the central question of John's Gospel and of every human life, and closes with the promise of John 8:51 that whoever keeps Christ's word shall never see eternal death.
Clip: People MUST come to the Saviour!
The absolute sovereignty of God does not annul the responsibility of every hearer to come to Christ. Drawing on Acts 4:12, John 6:37, and John 8:51, this clip argues that hyper-Calvinism distorts the gospel by severing divine sovereignty from the genuine duty of sinners to repent and believe. The consistent biblical witness — confirmed by Calvin's reading of Habakkuk — is that those who despise the gospel bring a more severe judgment upon themselves, while those who come to Christ in faith will not be cast out.
The Children of the Devil, Part 4
John 8:48–53 records the Jews' escalating accusation that Jesus is a Samaritan and demon-possessed — the very imitation of their father the devil that Jesus exposed in verse 44. This sermon works through Jesus' threefold denial of the demon charge: he honors the Father, does not seek his own glory, and speaks the words of eternal life — each point being precisely what a demon-possessed man would never do. The expositor presses the doctrinal stakes of verse 51 — 'if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death' — as a gracious promise held out even to those who would shortly take up stones, and calls hearers to come to Christ for justification before facing the eternal judgment from which no doubling-down on false religion can shield them.
The Believer's Response to Trials
James 1:2–8 addresses the believer's proper response to trials in a fallen world, pressing two demands: a joyful disposition toward suffering and a prayerful request for wisdom to navigate it. Drawing on John Calvin, Thomas Manton, and John Gill, the sermon distinguishes the trials of verse 2 (divine testing aimed at maturity) from the temptations of verse 13 (solicitations to sin), and traces the progression from endurance through testing to the perfection of verse 4. The sermon closes with a gospel call: the one who mastered suffering perfectly was Christ himself, whose righteousness is given to the believer by grace alone through faith alone.
The Sixth Commandment
Exodus 20:13 — 'You shall not murder' — receives a full exposition covering the Hebrew term ratza, the threefold division of law, the three uses of the law, the internal dimensions of the commandment, the three biblically warranted exceptions to the prohibition against killing, and the theological foundation of all human life in the imago Dei. The sermon moves from careful lexical and exegetical analysis to a sustained application across abortion, capital punishment, just war, self-defense, and the protection of every stage of human life from womb to grave. Hearers are called to pray for civil government, preach the law as a tutor to the cross, and hold fast to a biblical anthropology in a culture that systematically devalues image-bearers of God.
The Lord's Prayer
True prayer is distinguished from hypocrisy and paganism not merely by form but by motivation, manner, and theological grounding. Matthew 6:5–13 exposes the Pharisee who prays to be seen by men and the heathen who employs vain repetition to coerce a god, and sets against both the secret, faith-driven communion of the genuine child of God with his Father. The Lord's Prayer is not a liturgical formula to be recited but a structured outline — ordering petition rightly, with God's name, kingdom, and will before any human need — rooted in the sovereignty of a Father who knows what his children require before they ask. The sermon calls believers to examine their own prayer lives: whether prayer functions as worship and dependence upon the triune God, or as a merely transactional exercise.
2LCF24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Civil government is divinely ordained, not diabolical — a claim the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) sets out in chapter 24 and grounds in Romans 13:1–7 and the Noahic covenant. This study works through the confession's three paragraphs to establish the divine origin of the magistrate's authority, the lawfulness of Christian participation in civil office, and the Christian's duty of submission and prayer toward governing authorities. Against both Anabaptist withdrawal and statist overreach, the confession teaches that the magistrate is under God and over the people for God's glory and the public good — charged with maintaining justice and peace, wielding the sword against criminals and foreign aggressors, and accountable to God and the governed alike. Christians must yield subjection in all lawful things, yet obey God rather than men when civil law transgresses divine law.
2LCF 25 - Of Marriage
The confession's chapter on marriage (2LCF 25) rests on the foundation of Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, defining marriage as an exclusive covenant between one man and one woman, ordained by God before the fall and therefore neither a social construct nor a second-rate reality beneath celibacy. The chapter serves four structural functions: establishing the monogamous design of marriage, grounding its divine origin and pre-fall holiness, articulating its threefold providential purpose (companionship, procreation toward the inhabitation of creation, and a hedge against sexual immorality), and setting its regulative bounds with respect to both consanguinity and the Christian obligation to marry in the Lord. The placement of this chapter immediately before the chapter on the church (2LCF 26) is deliberate: God's use of marriage to populate the earth is the providential means by which He gathers the elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation unto Christ.
The Children of the Devil, Part 3
John 8:44–47 records Christ's unflinching indictment of the unbelieving Jewish religious leaders as children of the devil, a verdict he confirms by exposing three marks of their paternity: they reject the truth he speaks precisely because it is truth, they cannot convict him of a single sin, and they do not hear God's words because they are not of God. The sermon draws out the theological weight of each mark — the devil as murderer and father of lies in contrast to Christ as life and truth — and applies these diagnostic tests to the question of assurance: those who are of God love Christ and love the Word. The exposition closes with a call to both the congregation and the unconverted to rest in the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, as the only ground of a right relationship with God the Father.
The Children of the Devil, Part 1
John 8:37–41 records Jesus systematically dismantling the religious establishment's claim that physical descent from Abraham constitutes spiritual standing before God. Working through the Jews' twofold assertion — that Abraham is their father and, in verse 41, that God is their father — Jesus marshals three evidences that expose the claim as groundless: their murderous intent toward him, their refusal to receive his word, and their rejection of the one he came from. The sermon drives toward the conclusion that membership in the family of God is secured not by race but by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the promised seed of Genesis 3:15, and calls every hearer to examine whether they have received or rejected that word.
2LCF 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Second London Confession of Faith chapter 23 treats the doctrine of lawful oaths and vows, distinguishing Reformed Baptist practice from the Anabaptist rejection of oath-taking and from Roman Catholic monastical vows. The sermon argues that swearing by God's name is itself an act of religious worship — acknowledging his omniscience, omnipresence, and vindictive justice — and that Scripture warrants oaths in matters of weight and moment while condemning their careless everyday use. Matthew 5:33–37 is shown to address the abuse of casual, trivial oath-making rather than solemn oaths before lawful authority, as confirmed by Christ's own oath before the Sanhedrin, God's oath to Abraham, and Paul's repeated appeals to God as witness. The sermon closes by exposing popish monastical vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience as superstitious devices of men that contradict Scripture's positive assessment of marriage, honest labor, and just remuneration.
November 19, 2022 - Wedding Stream
A wedding homily grounding the institution of marriage in the creation account of Genesis 2 and the redemptive promise of Genesis 3:15. The sermon traces God's good gift of companionship in creation, the disruption of the fall, and the protoevangelium as the first announcement of the gospel — that Christ, born of a woman, would crush the serpent's head through substitutionary suffering and resurrection. The couple is charged to embody in their Christian marriage the relationship between Christ and his church as depicted in Ephesians 5, and all hearers are called to trust in Christ's righteousness received by faith alone.
Live Stream - November 13, 2022
John 8:33–36 presents two and only two conditions for humanity: slavery to sin or freedom in the Son. Expounding Christ's exchange with the unbelieving Jews after the Feast of Tabernacles, this sermon argues that every person outside of Christ is a slave to sin in the most absolute sense — dead in Adam, under the dominion of the devil, and liable to the wrath of God — not merely imperfect or morally deficient. The illustration of the slave who does not abide in the house forever is applied to the national judgment upon Israel for rejecting the Messiah, while the Son who abides forever is shown to be the only ground of permanent standing before God. The remedy for this tyranny is neither moral reform nor religious heritage but the liberating work of the Son himself: 'if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.'
The Command to Remember the Prisoners
Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not as a vague awareness, but as an active, continual concern that issues in prayer, correspondence, advocacy, and tangible aid. The sermon traces the biblical pattern of righteous suffering from Joseph and Jeremiah through the apostolic era, demonstrating that enmity against the people of God is not an anomaly but an expectation rooted in Genesis 3:15. The command is grounded in the solidarity of the one body: those who enjoy liberty share membership with those who suffer chains, and to forget the persecuted church is a failure of brotherly love. Believers are called to cultivate a global, intercessory prayer-life that refuses to confine concern to the local congregation, and to find in Christ's worth the courage to rejoice if they themselves are called to suffer.
What is Good for Man?
Ecclesiastes 7:1–14 poses the question raised in 6:12 — who knows what is good for man in this vain, shadow-like life? Working through the 'better than' sayings of the chapter, the sermon argues that what is genuinely good for man is often the very thing he instinctively avoids: sorrow, rebuke, and adversity. These are not ends in themselves but instruments by which God cultivates wisdom, exposes the emptiness of riches, and teaches his people their creaturely dependence, so that their hope is ultimately anchored not in temporal blessing but in the incorruptible inheritance secured by Christ.
The Laws Concerning Homicide and Bodily Injury, Part 3
Exodus 21:33–22:15 sets out Israel's case laws governing property damage, animal theft, and home defense — laws designed not as an exhaustive legal code but as representative principles equipping judges to adjudicate equitably. Three features of biblical law emerge with force: the pervasive principle of restitution (the offender must make the victim whole, not merely 'pay a debt to society'), the absence of a prison system in the Mosaic economy, and the explicit legitimacy of lethal self-defense when a thief breaks in under cover of darkness. The sermon calls hearers to appreciate the pro-victim orientation of God's law and to think biblically about criminal justice, property rights, and self-defense in the present civil order.
The Laws Concerning Homicide and Bodily Injury, Part 2
Exodus 21:22–32 contains Israel's civil laws governing bodily injury to a pregnant woman, the discipline of servants, and liability for a goring ox — all concrete applications of the sixth commandment. The passage's language for premature birth employs the same Hebrew vocabulary used elsewhere in Genesis for childbirth, establishing that both mother and child (or children) are protected persons under the law, which the sermon applies directly to the ethics of abortion. The lex talionis (life for life, eye for eye) is examined not as a mandate for literal replication of injury but as a principle requiring proportionate punishment — neither too lenient nor excessive — a standard grounded in the dignity of every person as an image bearer of God.